Pages

Poke’s decline shows Facebook’s inability to invent

Snapchat rises: Why Poke’s decline shows Facebook’s inability to invent — Tech News and Analysis: " . . . Facebook indulged in yet another act of wanton xeroxing and released Poke to compete with the red-hot insta-communication app, Snapchat. Well, a week later, the world has returned to normal. Snapchat, the insta-sharing app is once again among the most popular apps — at third place. And Poke… Well, it is languishing at the 34th spot on the top free apps list, way behind Instagram, Messenger and the official Facebook apps. It is yet another example of why just because you can copy something it doesn’t mean it will become successful, even if you are Facebook who is doing the copying. It is not clear what kind of usage the app is getting, but I am pretty sure Facebook will announce any day some metrics that don’t quite measure anything. This quick decline in downloads raises some questions about Facebook’s ability to be kingmaker. It may have helped Zynga when social games and Facebook’s platform were brand new phenomena. Remember how their frictionless sharing was going to change everything, especially for media companies? Well, it didn’t change a lick. Washington Post’s Facebook socialreader is now on the open web. Guardian is no longer interested in wasting its resources on the Facebook reader. . . ."